


Before Dark

by FunkyinFishnet



Category: Lucha Underground, Professional Wrestling
Genre: Character of Faith, Friendship, Gen, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 16:25:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6527467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyinFishnet/pseuds/FunkyinFishnet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melissa Santos draws the chimalli on her bedroom wall. She talks with gods and monsters. She chooses her own words, and their power, carefully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this after reading [A Woman's Job](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5998653) by doingwords and because I love Melissa Santos. Thanks for the inspiration :)

 

 

 

Every week, Melissa draws the chimalli on her bedroom walls. She draws it on every door way and window ledge, praying to Quetzalcóatl, Tezcatlipoca, Xipe Totec, for protection, providence and strength in warfare. Her apartment was provided for her by Dario Cueto as part of her contract, the people who live either side of her watched her on his orders. Now, are they under Catrina's thumb? Melissa is always polite but wary whenever she sees them. She never invites them over the threshold.

 

Catrina smells of old old blood and burning furnaces and there's the sound of a rattle in her wake. She strokes Melissa's hair and says,

 

“There is a place here for you in my temple. I like your voice.”

 

Melissa holds herself still. There is something about Catrina's presence that makes her nostrils sting. She has been taught to ask for guidance above because the gods will listen and in return she should listen to the gods. There are so many flames in Catrina's office, it looks like an altar now instead of a place of business. It is always hot, unbearable. Catrina seems to thrive in the heat. Sometimes, Melissa spies faces in the office's mirrors. She spies them in the blade of Catrina's knife too.

 

“Thank you,” she tells Catrina, her voice not sounding so strong.

 

Catrina smiles and it makes Melissa want to shudder. She has seen that expression before, on the pages of books her _primas_ showed her when she was much smaller, when she still had much more to learn. She thumbs the tattoo hidden at her waist, the eagle that has always pointed her to strength and courage. Still Melissa does not move.

 

“Continue to do as Mil and I command and you will be...perfectly safe here.”

 

Melissa bobs her head, keeping her doubts silent, and leaves when Catrina doesn't ask any more of her. She doubts Catrina would lift a finger – or knife – to help if Pentagon Jr grabbed her again. Melissa begins to make her way upstairs, to the roof of the temple. If Catrina asks, Melissa needs air, some space, before the next show. That much is true. There must always be some truth in words, Melissa has learned this.

 

The roof is a good place to find a little space from confrontation, from the wrestlers who like to intimidate her. Pentagon Jr has definitely been circling her apartment. Melissa is sure she has seen him out of her window, him and others that she doesn't yet recognize. He watches her in the temple too, another reflection. It makes her skin crawl and her heart thunder. She misses Sexy Star.

 

Her footsteps sound so loud on the stairs, there are shadows moving but she has learned that she must ignore them. She thinks they look like Vampiro, it makes her throat tighten. She has never been able to trust him since he revealed himself as Pentagon Jr's master. He claims he takes pills now, that he has changed. She avoids him.

 

Upstairs. She is going upstairs. Out of the darkness, she is suddenly high up and surrounded by stars. She takes deep breaths and sends silent prayers to Tezcatlipoca. What a beautiful night. She stares and stares, at the nearby glitter of the city, the sounds of eager cars and the breeze that never stops. She stares and she prays.

 

She knows she won't be alone for long. When she looks toward the roof edge now, there's Drago, folding his wings, and Aero Star, nodding towards Drago and then towards Melissa too. She dips her head deeply, her heart thundering for a different reason now. She's in the presence of ancient power and she will give it the respect it deserves.

 

Whenever she does her vocal exercises, she sings as much Sia as she does old Aztec songs and Catholic hymns, legacies of her family. She can pick out sounds of Cacalachtli rattles and Chichitli whistles spun from memories and always the drums. Sometimes she yearns for it. It's not safe but she holds on and knows the bite and sacrifice demanded of her in return.

 

Melissa's _primas_ taught her how to protect herself, they all have tattoos and Melissa has seen the marks they paint and carve in their homes.

 

“Old ways,” they say, one after the other. “But old doesn't mean dead.”

 

Catrina is changing the temple. Melissa is used to being afraid – of Pentagon Jr, of Marty the Moth, of losing more friends like Sexy Star. She is used to taking old precautions and doing her job regardless, trying not to shake, her heart racing. Her fear of Catrina is different.

 

Aero Star and Drago are still waiting. Drago doesn't seem to blink; his voice is always deep. Deeper, more powerful than mountains. Deep because he is a dragon now a man? Melissa hasn't asked. His form is his own and he chooses to talk to her. Aero Star always smiles. Melissa thinks about Huitzilopuchhli's brothers, the ones who became stars, and she wonders. She thinks she can hear drums, her _primas_ singing. It's all life, church and blood.

 

Melissa has given blood before. The wounds always heal.

 

“It's too warm down there,” she says at last.

 

She thinks of knife reflections and candles that never go out. Tlazolteotl and Xolotl – lust and death. She touches her eagle tattoo again. She has never heard wingbeats to match the drums. She wishes she did sometimes.

 

“It is how she thrives,” Drago replies, smoke and stone and fire. Beyond mountains.

 

But his fire is different to the ones Catrina's surrounds herself with, just as hot, just as powerful, only the sensation across Melissa's skin is different. It's a more welcome heat, though she knows she will burn if she is careless, if she is foolish. It doesn't slow her heartbeat.

 

Sometimes – when Pentagon Jr is purposeful with piercing eyes outside her apartment, when Catrina is lighting more candles and her presence feels like a caressing choke – this is the only place Melissa feels she can breathe.

 

“Little sister.” That's Aero Star, his smile is broad and shows all of his teeth. “Voice of the temple.”

 

He is shorter than Melissa, even when she isn't wearing heels, but he touches her throat without any effort and the lights on his suit seem brighter. Melissa feels her body bowing, as though his gentlest touch is enough to command her. He must feel her quick pulse. His presence is like pure starlight in full motion. Aero Star's feet touch brick for now but he isn't of this world.

 

Drago's wings have unfolded behind him, free in a way they can't be inside the temple. It's still a sight that steals Melissa's breath – both dragon and man, power and grace, like something from childhood stories that seems more vivid here than ever. Melissa isn't blind to his savagery, she watches his matches from close range, she sees how he strikes and wins, she see his sharp teeth bared, his claws, the scales that hurt to the touch. She sees him fly.

 

Drago doesn't refuse her gaze, because of what she sees? There is uncanny power in him, how can anyone not see it? It's as natural as breathing fire, a deep fury. It steals Melissa's words. What can she say in the face of that? What can she do but stare?

 

She counts herself lucky to be granted this glimpse, to see them as they are. Perhaps because of the stories and songs she has always known, because of the reason behind her feathered serpent tattoo, like the eagle hidden from view but always present. Her heritage is vivid within her, she has at least one _prima_ who is a priest and even now the youngest relatives are told the old stories. Some things are made to be remembered. Isn't that how Aero Star is here at all?

 

Melissa wonders sometimes. The gods have always been demanding and devouring. Melissa knows how small she is by comparison, even if Aero Star and Drago have said she has a place there, that her voice is needed. They have said before that they do not wish to destroy the temple, that Melissa is safe in their shadow. Aero Star lets her go.

 

Melissa doesn't want to know everything though. She doesn't ask who, what, Catrina is. Already she thinks too often of a rattle when she sees Catrina, the sound tempering Catrina's footsteps. She thinks Catrina hears it too. Melissa wants to be strong enough to look her boss in the eye, she wants to be strong enough to stand. So some things she does not ask.

 

There is always power in words. Melissa chooses them carefully in the ring. People don't know how she crafts what she says in the temple, the origin and weight, the names luchadores choose, the inflections Melissa gives them. There is power in what she does.

 

Perhaps this is why Aero Star and Drago choose to meet with her, to talk with her, the sign for the temple's purpose always towering above them. They never show their faces at her apartment, as forces circle, making her think of reflections, her memories infected. Do those who circle know what Aero Star and Drago know too? Is any of Aero Star and Drago's power focused here at the temple? A different kind of altar. Melissa listens to them both closely, her fingers never far from her tattoos. There is power in their words and actions too.

 

_-the end_


End file.
